{"product_id":"stringer-isbn-9780345806321","title":"Stringer","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eBook of the Year, The Royal African Society (UK)\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the powerful travel-writing tradition of Ryszard Kapuœciñski and V.S. Naipaul, a haunting memoir of a dangerous and disorienting year of self-discovery in one of the world’s unhappiest countries.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn August 2005, Anjan Sundaram abandoned his path to a Yale Ph.D. in mathematics to travel to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and refashion himself as a journalist. He found a country that was diseased, corrupt, and poised on the cusp of war. When Sundaram is engaged as a “stringer” for the Associated Press, he becomes a chronicler for a country he’s just beginning to experience. \u003ci\u003eStringer\u003c\/i\u003e is his searing portrait of life in this broken, lawless place, an account of the rocky education of a reporter. Sundaram describes the grueling reality of daily existence in the Congo, intimately outlining his own struggle to make sense of life in a world where cab rides can end at gunpoint and rebel generals are only a phone call away. As the city of Kinshasha descends into anarchy after a contested election, Sundaram takes shelter in a factory to file report after report even as other journalists flee. Oscillating between anger and loneliness and between melancholy and exhilaration, \u003ci\u003eStringer\u003c\/i\u003e completely transports us not only to the Congo—but to the limits of sanity, reason, and experience.\u003c\/p\u003e | Praise for \u003ci\u003eStringer\u003c\/i\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[Sundaram] has made gold out of...embracing the vulnerability one feels as a story unfolds. He uses moments of his own confusion or ignorance to illuminate the people and places around him.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eColumbia Journalism Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e  \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A remarkable book about the lives of people in Congo.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Jon Stewart, The Daily Show\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"This is a book about a young journalist's coming of age, and a wonderful book it is, too.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Ted Koppel, NPR\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “A remarkable debut, an eye-opening account.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Daily Beast\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"An excellent debut book of reportage on the Congo.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Fareed Zakaria, CNN\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Original, startling, and compelling… remarkable… Sundaram excels at describing the moments of unfathomable tedium, petty crime, and long stretches of solitude. These moments, beautifully rendered, draw back the curtain on the making of foreign news… The scenes are vivid, the prose muscular. Sundaram paints vast emotional landscapes that he would never have been able to squeeze into a wire report… a testament to the importance of longform journalism, and books in general.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Revealer \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Perceptive…part travel memoir, part meditation on the unknown and ignored…the writer Sundaram most reminds me of is Teju Cole…meditative and closely observant…perceptive and intensely self-analytical…The stringer has earned his stripes.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Magnus Taylor, \u003ci\u003eAfrican Arguments\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"Books by journalists usually keep the focus outward, but Sundaram has more of a novelist's interior sensibility and a talent for describing anxiety and ennui. Readers may be tempted to compare him to Conrad and Naipaul, but he has a strong, unique style all his own.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Excerpts from his notebooks chronicle personal reflections as he struggles to learn how to report from an unruly land, harboring doubts and misgivings and a feverish desperation to make sense of one of the deadliest places in the world. [It's] a breathtaking look at a troubled nation exploited by greedy forces within and without.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The author skillfully captures the smallest details of life in a destitute land, blending the sordid history of Congo with his battle to forge a career in a troubled and forsaken country.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The authenticity is palpable.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Anjan Sundaram’s prose is so luscious, whether he’s writing about mathematics or colonial architecture or getting mugged, that the words come alive and practically dance on the page. \u003ci\u003eStringer\u003c\/i\u003e, his first book, about a year-long journey to Congo; reading it made me feel like I’d follow him anywhere in the world.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Barbara Demick, author of \u003ci\u003eNothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eLogavina Street: Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What a debut! It's not often one reads a book of reportage from a difficult foreign country with such fever-dream immediacy, such tense intelligence, and such an artful gift for story-telling. Here is a commanding new writer who comes to us with the honesty, the intensity, and the discerning curiosity of the young Naipaul.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Pico Iyer, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Lady and the Monk, The Global Soul, \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e The Man Within My Head \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“In lucid and searing prose, and with bracing self-awareness, Anjan Sundaram explores a country that has long been victimized by the ever-renewed greeds of the modern world. \u003ci\u003eStringer\u003c\/i\u003e is one of those very rare books of journalism that transcend their genre—and destiny as ephemera—and become literature.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Pankaj Mishra, author of \u003ci\u003eFrom the Ruins of Empire \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eTemptations of the West\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"With an incisive intellect and senses peeled raw, Sundaram takes us on a mesmerizing journey through the vibrant shambles of modern Congo. This is that rare work of reportage that achieves true literary greatness, and it can stand proudly next to V.S. Naipaul or Ryszard Kapuscinski.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Richard Grant, author of \u003ci\u003eGod's Middle Finger \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eStringer\u003c\/i\u003e is an extraordinary work of reportage. Anjan Sundaram is the Indian successor to Kapuscinski.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Basharat Peer, author of \u003ci\u003eCurfewed Night\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A fascinating, breathtaking work of reporting and introspection from a writer whose next work will be eagerly awaited.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Time Out Mumbai\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e | \u003cp\u003eAnjan Sundaram is an award-winning journalist who has reported from Africa and the Middle East for \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e and the Associated Press. His writing has also appeared in \u003ci\u003eForeign Policy, Fortune, The Washington Post,\u003c\/i\u003e the \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times,\u003c\/i\u003e the \u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune,\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe Telegraph, The Guardian,\u003c\/i\u003e the \u003ci\u003eInternational Herald Tribune,\u003c\/i\u003e and the \u003ci\u003eHuffington Post.\u003c\/i\u003e He has been interviewed by the BBC World Service and Radio France Internationale for his analysis of the conflict in Congo. He received a Reuters journalism award in 2006 for his reporting on Pygmy tribes in Congo’s rain forest. He currently lives in Kigali, Rwanda, with his wife.\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003ci\u003eExcerpted from the hardcover edition\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was already feeling perturbed. There was something perhaps  about the bar’s large parasol umbrellas, lit starkly by the hanging  naked bulbs. Or it could have been the figures flitting behind them,  beyond my view.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI had sensed his presence, his curt movements.  But they did not seem malicious. Then he lunged for my table, and I  found myself running in the night. I ran with all my force. And I would  have said I was faster than him. But I might have imagined my own speed  from the people who passed me by like pages in a flip-book: mamas with  bananas on their heads, vendors carting cages of birds and monkeys, the  crocodile-leather pointy-shoed bureaucrats. They turned to stare at me,  the whites of their eyes stabbing the darkness and piercing my face, my  side, my back. Who are you looking at? He’s the thief, stop him!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI  squinted to keep sight. His form was like an illusion—feet leaping off  the earth, driving up plumes of dust. His hands pulled at his falling  shorts; and when he looked back to see I was still running he screamed  in surprise, showing dull teeth, and turned into a narrow passage.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe  regressed from the city. The alleys amplified the darkness and my  shallow breaths filled the spaces between the walls that rose on either  side—gray walls high and long between which I ran blindly, without  thinking—until we came to a field. And for a moment I lost sight of him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI turned sharply, feeling a panic rise.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You!”  He appeared, empty-handed—and jeering at me, almost as if he wanted to  play. A sickly chicken of a boy, with limbs extending like antennae from  his belly. “You have my phone!” I yelled. “Té! I refuse!” The ground  was wet and yielding, covered in waste, cans, wrappers. The smell was  rotten. It was like nothing I had known. A landfill in the middle of the  city. Of what was I afraid?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I’ll give you money.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“How much?” He wiped his shoulder over his mouth; his face was covered in sweat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA  group of children skipped toward us. I reached into my pocket for my  notebook and wallet. The boy turned, and I saw a wound on a hairless  part of his scalp.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Keep the phone”—I pointed into my palm—“I  only need the numbers inside.” He smiled, as if smelling a trick. I felt  frustrated at my carelessness. I didn’t have money to hand out, and  those numbers were precious. I was new in the country and had few  friends. Most meetings had been gained by chance, in the street, at the  odd conference, in a waiting room or at a bar; they had not been  planned, necessary, or even particularly friendly. And yet they had  taken on, in my mind, a great importance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKinshasa, when I first  arrived, had felt giant, overwhelming. The scenes on the roads, the  people moving from here to there, the languages, gestures, stares—the  smallest rituals had seemed imbued with meaning and purpose, and the  city appeared as a collusion of secrets only the locals shared. But  these strangers I had met—journalists, businessmen, minor  politicians—had become bearings from which I navigated the confusion.  With them I constructed a sense of place, and for moments felt part of  the mystery. So the phone contained my personal map; and without it I  felt lost, as though I had newly arrived for a second time and was again  without connection. The bewilderment was now greater. And having  exhausted the initial excitement of the new place, I now found the city  distant, hostile.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy sigh came out heavy and sharp; it startled  the boy. Already he was stepping away. I half tripped forward and  yelled, “How do I find you? What’s your name?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Guy.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd, making a cackling noise, he ran behind a mound. I felt suddenly strained.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI  could not tell the way by which I had come—so I picked a nearby narrow  street and followed it for a mile or two. The walk was not unpleasant.  We were in the middle of a brief rainless period, in the summer; and  there was a slight breeze. But even in this season the climate was humid  and hot, and in such conditions everything grew quickly: the nails, the  hair, the plants and insects. All attained giant or copious  proportions. I stopped to inspect a falling banana tree. Its top was  sappy, and crawling with red ants.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe city also grew daily. It  was a center of migration for the region, like São Paulo or Calcutta,  and already black Africa’s largest capital—a collapsed metropolis,  unable to assure even the survival of its nine million people. But still  the dispossessed came in floods from the villages.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI passed some  women sitting on their porches, washing down their children from  canisters of soapy brown water. They looked up. Bonjour, I said. Slowly  they repeated the word, as though they had not expected it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe  main road was unlit and cars streamed past. People stood in packs,  frantically waving their hands and rushing to each slowing taxi. I made a  circle with my forefinger pointing at the ground and twenty minutes  later found space in a minibus going north. My house was to the south,  but it was the end of the working day and I was commuting like the  masses. This was my way of finding a free seat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI trembled  incessantly—as did the bus’s plywood floor. The metal chassis around me  was covered in the dents of countless collisions. The driver took us to  the city’s commercial area, cruising along the street edge and gathering  passengers. A man hanging on the back of the bus constantly yelled our  route. People swelled toward us like a sea. We sat in an old Volkswagen  whose twelve cushioned seats had been pulled out and replaced with  wooden benches; soon we were more than thirty inside, cramped side by  side, hands between our knees. We squeezed more for the woman who  brought in her drooling infant. The windows were sealed shut, so there  was no breeze, and inside it was suffocating. The human smells engulfed  us. But I looked through the glass and saw the movement; and this  perception of the wind gave some false relief. We came to the harbor,  with its broken heavy machinery. And the two- and three-story buildings  stained with long black stripes: algae, rising from within the cement  and blooming in the open. One imagined the decomposition that lived  hidden within. The city seemed to be falling apart, building by  building—structures crumbled so slowly they seemed almost to melt. At a  roundabout we circled a brick monument—black, as though burned. The  statue of the Belgian king had long been toppled, leaving two pillars  framing an empty space. Lining the roads were heaps of garbage, glowing  like embers and giving off black smoke.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe collapse, the crisis.  It is how the world knows Congo. Death is as widespread in few places.  Children born here have the bleakest futures. It is the most diseased,  the most corrupt, and the least habitable—the country heads nearly every  conceivable blacklist. One survey has it that no nation has more  citizens who want to leave.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd now we come to the mouth of the  Boulevard, the city’s artery. The bus, shivering, accelerates in the  wide lanes. On both sides old trees with majestic green crowns and  high-rises pass quickly. They still inspire awe. Not far away is the  Congo River, opening into a pool and curling around us. One is reminded  that this place, even in Europe, was once called the Beautiful, La  Belle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Boulevard is soothing in a way—this part of the city,  one feels, has a certain vision, and was made with care. Buildings  eighty and ninety years old are still intact, with porches and pillars  and triangular eaves. Walls show traces of ocher. Old floors are of fine  red and black oxide. The city is well planned, and traffic is congested  only because wear has thinned the roads’ drivable widths and because of  modern neighborhoods, haphazardly constructed. The boulevards are  enormous, like in few African cities. The lampposts are tall, solid,  evenly spaced. And the railway station has a monument in Latin,  declaring the colonial project for which this city was made: “Aperire  Terram Gentibus”—“To Open the Land to the Nations.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCongo was  then opened like a wound. And the world, continually seeking modernity,  still consumes the country. A Belgian king committed genocide during the  automobile revolution to pillage Congo for rubber—the world needed  tires then. Mid-century, the Belgian state initiated a war over Congo’s  copper, to wire the world for electricity. Congo’s recent conflicts were  heightened by the world’s growing demand for tin, to make the  conductors used in almost every electronic circuit. We currently live in  what some say is the Fourth Great Pillage—others call it the Fifth or  Sixth. The world now needs cell phones, and Congo contains 60 percent of  known reserves of an essential metal called tantalum. It is the curse:  each progress in the world produces some new suffering. And a succession  of Congolese leaders have tried, in their ways, to reclaim their  land—first Lumumba by expelling the white man and gaining independence  from Belgium; then Mobutu by reviving the old Congolese idea of  kingship; and finally the father Kabila, with his half-Marxist ideas of  liberation. But even now the country gives the impression of being  possessed by outside powers. Kabila’s son, the president, seems himself  overwhelmed. Much of the country is without government. The wealth has  brought out the worst in man: greed, corruption, great violence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese  four men had defined Congo’s history. Patrice Lumumba, the fiery  politician who united the Congolese and remains the country’s only true  hero. Then Lumumba’s onetime secretary, Joseph Mobutu, ruled as dictator  for more than thirty years, with Western help, after having Lumumba  assassinated in 1961, just six months after Congo’s independence. The  rebel Laurent Kabila—the father Kabila—in 1997 toppled the  cancer-afflicted Mobutu. And when the father Kabila was himself  assassinated four years later, it was his son, the relatively unknown  Joseph Kabila, who was installed, and still presided over this naturally  rich but ravaged country.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA Congolese legend has it that God,  tired after creating the world, stopped at this part of the earth and  dropped all his sacks of riches. Gold, diamonds, oil, silver, uranium,  zinc, cobalt and tungsten. Such is the wealth—they say you only have to  dig and you are sure to find something, though you may not know its  name. And it seems somehow significant that this wealth, which another  culture might have interpreted as a divine reward, is described in  Congolese legend as an accident. God only happened to be at this place.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe  minibus turned in to the Avenue des Huileries, the Avenue of Oil  Works—we were now only a few miles from the journey’s end—where the bus  had to share space with the pedestrians, and slow to their pace. As we  shed the colonial structures, the past, buildings on the roads grew  small and clustered, reflecting the country’s anarchy. And against this  backdrop the sluggish walkers appeared almost magical, like the  survivors of a cataclysm. Men wore suits and fat-knotted ties, yellow  and pink; women frilly fancy dresses. The shoes stepping in the mud were  well polished, of fine leather. Rings of wetness showed under their  arms on the satin. So laboriously beautiful—the people had an air of  character, defiance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe north and the west of the city were  affluent, particularly along the river. As the bus plunged inland, on  every side opened up slum-like neighborhoods, vast, featureless, without  light. We moved through one of these murky areas, and entered a busy  market, with roaming figures. The sides of our bus began to be thumped.  We were gently rocked. Suddenly our bus was mobbed. Children’s wide-eyed  faces pressed against my window. I drew away. “Give me money,” said the  shapes of their lips, round as an O. “Pesambongo.” But it was  useless—our windows were fixed, and they could not even sell us their  cool drinks, shoe shine or melting candy. Their desperate small hands  stained the glass with wet palm prints. And they passed by like  slow-motion pictures, glaring at us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe at last arrived at the  roar of Victoire, my neighborhood—and one could feel the chaos become  acute. It was a place of raw cement. Few buildings were even  whitewashed. Occasionally a low wall would be made of brick, adding a  touch of color. But Victoire was legendary in Africa—revered, almost as a  site of pilgrimage. Already, at this hour, from all parts of the city  people would be coming; and beginning at 11:00 p.m., when Kinshasa’s  lights had mostly extinguished and the regular families had retired,  here the vitality would resurge, creating an experience of almost pure  pleasure and excitement. The music and meat grills would go all night.  Saxophones would sound from terraces. Dancers would move like water:  slow hips, tempting. The city would live a second life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut now  it seemed to oppress: the street of wooden stalls lit by kerosene lamps,  where I alighted—the stalls crooked, winged insects gathering around  their glows, the earth pushing against their walls in chimneyed piles.  The feeling, I knew, had something to do with the house, around the  corner. I tried to delay getting back by running some errands.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe  shop I made for was just down the road, but people and cars flowed  incessantly: I was forced to move, and often against my intention. To be  still anywhere was to be in the way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd at the center of this  disorder, beside a pile of garbage being eaten by dogs and shrouded by  flies, I arrived at a table of electrical goods. Shops in Kinshasa,  especially in this part of town, had moved into the open to escape  rents. The vendor was reading a stained small-format magazine, and  looking disconsolate. I said I needed a fan. “I have a new ventilator,”  he declared. “High quality. I give you the best price.” Best price meant  there were other prices and I should negotiate. A large pedestaled  machine with blue blades was produced.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I don’t want Made in China.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis  salesman demeanor vanished. “Okay, I know the fan is no good, but you  pay only thirty dollars. Made in Japan I have no stock. And why should  I? The fans last too long and no one buys again.” I relaxed. Now we  could talk freely. Outbursts augured well in Congo—one only had to  expose the initial theater, I found, and people were generally up-front.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe  agreed on the terms of sale, including a one-week guarantee, which the  vendor scribbled on the receipt and signed. He meticulously wrapped the  fan in cardboard, while I observed the people, the street. Near me  danced a stout man, alone, holding a portable radio to his ear; in front  of him a butcher massaged a block of meat.","brand":"Anchor","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304512344293,"sku":"NP9780345806321","price":15.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345806321.jpg?v=1767737440","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/stringer-isbn-9780345806321","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}